


The Arrangement

by Archangel67



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), F/M, Ficlet, Polyamory, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-29 09:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3890839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archangel67/pseuds/Archangel67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A ficlet I wrote to gather my thoughts about Clint, Natasha, Laura, and Bruce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Arrangement

It was something that hadn’t come up when they first met. Why would it have?

Their friendship had come begrudgingly on his part and later the feelings had developed even more begrudgingly on hers. Natasha didn’t love. She wasn’t supposed to actually feel anything toward anyone, save some vague sense of loyalty to those who controlled her. It was the sort of thing that most people went to therapy for, but it was what made her an efficient killer. No attachments.

That was also why they performed the surgery on the girls before sending them out into the field. Sure, they might have said it was to keep them from becoming pregnant because pregnancies caused complications. They liked to claim that since the girls were expected to see their bodies as tools, they didn’t want biology to get in the way of seduction. Sex was a tool. Pregnancy would mean that tool was out of commission, unless your mark was a guy with a set of particularly unique fetishes.

She had only been a kid when it happened and at the time it hadn’t mattered. There was nothing that could have made her stop and think that maybe one day things would be different. She graduated at the top of her class. Her entire existence revolved around taking life, not making it.

But then he’d come into the picture.

He was a regular guy. A soldier like her, and an outcast. He said that she was tougher than he was, but he liked to think that he was smarter. Even though she knew how to get information out of anyone, he had never been a mark. Natasha didn’t want to squeeze his secrets out of him. For once she had wanted to wait, to watch them spill like sand through a sieve. Freely given to her because he wanted to share himself. Not because she needed to know his innermost thoughts to play him like she did everyone else.

That was how she got to know his past. His present. What he wanted for the future. She even got his real name. Clint. They started working together regularly after she decided to leave her old life in the dust and join those who might put her set of skills to better use. There was never going to be a day when she wasn’t a killer, but at least she could try to kill for the right reasons for once.

She had been so carefully trained not only to hide her emotions, but to do her best not to have any at all. That was why it had come as such a shock to her system when she realized how much she did care about him. Even worse… she realized that she couldn’t give him what he wanted. Clint talked about a family. A big one. Having some land, maybe a farm, and a place to settle down when things got quiet. If they ever got quiet. He had laughed at that and then remarked that it was probably a stupid idea any way because they never even got vacation let alone time to play house.

It was in Budapest that things had gotten real for them. It was a search and rescue mission that had them going off the grid. No back up, no one to pull them out if things got too hard. And that was exactly what had happened. Their mark was dead before they had even managed to get anywhere near them and they spent the next two weeks on the run, barely avoiding a band of deep cover Hydra agents who had gone turncoat from SHIELD a few years prior.

When it looked like the end of the world, you tended to take risks. Hers was learning every inch of his body and his was telling her at a hilariously inappropriate moment half way through that he loved her. It was only afterwards, nearly a week later when they were back at headquarters that he sheepishly asked whether their lack of protection was going to be a problem.

She’d been forced to tell him then. For some reason the words had stuck in her throat.

When his expression changed, she almost expected for him to take back what he had said about loving her. How could he love someone who couldn’t give him what he wanted? Life was too short. It was why she didn’t do relationships. Even what she had with Clint she wouldn’t have called a relationship. Just… an understanding.

It had been years since they had first met. Years since she had begun to feel comfortable in his company. When he took her into his arms and told her that he didn’t care, however, she went cold. Natasha knew a lie when she heard one. He never lied to her. So why would he bother to do so now? She pulled away from him and left without another word.

It took a while for her to come around. He repeatedly tried to get her to talk to him but he didn’t want to. Not until she had a solution. After spending so many years using sex and false love as a weapon, she had never stopped to consider that it might be used for something else. She couldn’t have children, but Clint could. She would never be someone who could settle down. But _Clint_ could. So why shouldn’t he? There were other women out there in the world and he didn’t deserve to have to choose between his ideal life and her. Not when he could have both.

When she first brought up the idea, he had laughed. When she had insisted that she was serious, he seemed perplexed. So they would be together… but not openly because those sorts of things were dangerous when you worked for an organization like SHIELD. They would be together but they would also be allowed to see other people. For Natasha it went without saying because she used her body like a weapon. It was harder for Clint to wrap his head around it. He kept asking if she was sure that she was okay with that. As if she owned him. It was charming, if a little frustrating.

When he finally agreed, after making sure that she was completely in agreement with the plan, he had one out and gotten her something to make it “official”. A cheap trinket that couldn’t have cost more than ten dollars – but he said it made him feel better. He wanted her to know that no matter what, he was always going to love her and he wanted part of him to always be with her. She’d worn the silly gold arrow charm necklace from that day forward.

 

. . .

 

It was a while before he bothered to branch out, but she had given him a nudge. She told him that he wasn’t getting any younger and that the only way he would ever have a family was if he went out and met other women. What had once been a tense subject became more of a joke. And when he finally took the time to meet new women, she told him that she wanted to hear everything about them. Not so she could make sure that they were good enough – because she trusted his judgement – but just because she wanted to be involved in that part of his life as well.

Natasha hadn’t expected to like Laura as much as she did. The woman was genuinely kind and funny and smart. She didn’t let Clint walk all over her but she was also gentle with him in a way that Natasha knew she could never be. After a couple of dates, he had explained the situation between himself and Natasha. Where others had been upset or angered, she had just been curious. On their next outing, all three of them went out so she and Laura could get to know each other. It went better than expected.

After dating her for a few months when things were starting to look more serious, he had nearly tried to call it off. In a moment of desperation he had said that he didn’t know if he was good enough for her… didn’t think that she should have to wait for him not knowing if he was alive or dead. Natasha had reminded him that Laura was an adult who could make her own decisions and if she didn’t have a problem with it than neither should he.

They got engaged a month later and were married by the end of the year. The ceremony was quiet, private, and done on the newly purchased chunk of land that Clint had put nearly all of his savings toward. For the first time in a long time Natasha realized that she was happy. When Clint was with Laura, he was utterly dedicated to her. And when he was with her… it was the same. Laura had become a friend. Someone who she wanted to protect with her life. Not a third wheel.

And when the kids came? They weren’t just Laura and Clint’s kids. Natasha was there for them. The pregnancies had made her nervous but Laura was tougher than she looked. Although she gave them time to be alone, basking in the “new family” glow between missions Natasha had felt a sort of secret relief when Clint had asked her to come stay at their home when she had down time. It wasn’t just Clint who wanted her there, either. Laura was immediately referring to her as Aunt Nat even when the infants were still utterly incapable of understanding what it meant. The only reason she had ever wanted children, even fleetingly, had been because she wanted Clint to have his family.

Being an aunt suited her much better.

They never told the kids what their arrangement was. As they got older, all they knew was that Aunt Nat came to visit and that both of their parents cared for her very much. She brought them gifts and told them stories. She taught them phrases in Russian that made Clint pretend that his hearing aids had shorted out and that he hadn’t heard them. She even helped them practice their sign language since it was something that Laura for the life of her had never been very good at no matter how hard she tried.

When the team found out, after meeting Laura, they took it better than expected. Steve was surprisingly supportive once he had wrapped his head around the fact that they were all honest with each other and that Clint wasn’t just two-timing herself or Laura. Tony had muttered something about relationships never working out anyway. Thor assured them that what they were doing was fairly common in Asard.

As for Bruce… he seemed let down. It had never occurred to Natasha that he might react negatively. He had let Betty because he hadn’t wanted to hurt her, physically nor emotionally. He had seen a strength in Natasha that made her seem like someone who he might actually be able to connect with but when he had discovered that she was a big part of Clint’s family… he knew he couldn’t take her away from that no matter what she said.

Bruce wasn’t dumb. He understood that she had said had taken certain measures to make sure that he thought fondly of her. If he hadn’t, the “lullaby” wouldn’t have worked. It wasn’t like she’d been the first one to administer it. Tony had tried, then Steve. Thor had refused since he preferred him when he was the other guy. Said he fought better. She had been the first one who had gotten the pressure point trick to work. But she knew that it worked not _only_ because she was so well versed with the human body that she could have killed a man with her bare hands, but also because deep down Bruce liked her. Natasha had tracked him down and made him join the team. She was like his life line.

So maybe it hadn’t surprised her when he left without her. The truth was that she had never intended to go very far anyway. Once he had been somewhere safe, Natasha had planned on leaving him to start over while she returned to the farm. While she wished that she had gotten a chance to tell him that she hadn’t been entirely leading him on – that she did care about him and that she wanted to see him find his happiness even though it couldn’t be her – she knew that he would be alright in the end. He always was.

Having come from nothing but death and destruction, it felt good to go back to the farm. Because if there was anywhere that she could call home, that was it.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't beta'd or anything so there might be errors.


End file.
